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Just moved from Windows Phone 7 on a HTC Trophy to Windows Phone 8 on an HTC 8X. Very please with most things, apart from the maps. Here is an aerial view map from my old phone:
And the same location on my new phone:
(These images are both Whitley Bay, UK if you want to test for yourself). It looks like the images were taken on a cloudy day. It's rubbish!
The satellite imagery on my Windows Phone is very poor in general. It's better in London - but still poor compared to WP7.
In Windows Phone 8 Microsoft has switched from Bing to Nokia Maps for all of its data:
Is Nokia Maps on all Windows Phone 8 smartphones?
The Nokia Location Platform is powering the Windows Phone 8 ecosystem, not Nokia Maps, which is an app. On non-Nokia Windows Phone 8 smartphones, the default mapping application is Windows Phone Maps. This is running on top of our map data. It is using our geocoding, our traffic information and our routes, but it’s ultimately developed by Windows Phone, with a custom UI, search and POI database.
Apparently this provides more accurate information for some locations, but also worse for some--in my experience the maps are nigh unusable in Japan (using an HTC 8X).
If you are using a non-Nokia phone you get it slightly worse as some features are only available in the Nokia Maps app e.g. public transportation and turn-by turn navigation (I believe this can work on non-Nokia phones with a plugin).
